Simon Says – The end of our Dynavolt partnership

For the last three years Dynavolt have been our main partner and title sponsor of our team.  For this year, 2023 we had verbally agreed to continue and were awaiting the signing of the contract.  Just two days before we left for the opening round in Australia, the President of Dynavolt informed me that they would not be able to sign the contract due to a reduction in their marketing budget.

I have to say this was a big shock to me as everything was agreed.  For sure this left me in a very difficult position to say the least.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dynavolt for the three years of valuable support and on behalf of PTR Triumph, thank the President, Leonard Chen, the Managing Director of Dynavolt Tech Thailand, James Nay and everyone at Dynavolt for your support.

I have worked with Triumph and have raised budget supporting other Triumph teams in Europe and looking towards 2024.  Also, of course I have had to invest a lot of my own money to replace the big hole Dynavolt have left.  I am passionate about racing so I do this in good faith.

We are working very closely with Triumph to introduce a new title partner in 2024 and we are confident from both sides.  I would like to say to all our fans and supporters that all is well for the rest of 2023 due to everyone around me and all our loyal partners working together for the Triumph Racing Team.

We are still fifth in the Championship with Niki Tuuli despite the last two rounds being disappointing.  We and Niki are working hard to overcome this.  It is difficult as the lap time is there, it is just in the race he cannot overtake and struggles to maintain consistent times for the whole race.

Harry also is not progressing after starting well with an eleventh-place finish in Australia.  As an ex-rider I know how hard it is to regain confidence when things are not going well but we will keep working with Harry to improve.

I know in the past criticism has been levelled at me for working with riders who bring support to the team.  Some people call this ‘pay rides’ but in my view, it is not that way at all.  It is just two parties working together to achieve their goals in the best way.  Trust me, whilst we may have been one of the first teams to openly admit working in this way, we are nowhere near the team who is asking riders and their partners for the most support.  I have always wanted to work in the best way with all our riders and where at all possible, to work with British riders to help develop British riders in World Championship racing.

In the case of Harry Truelove this was the case and in fact I turned down opportunities which would have brought more benefit to the team to give a British rider a chance to shine at World level.  I did discuss with Harry and his dad Paul just what a huge step up in level World Supersport was from British Supersport right at the start of our discussions.  This has proved to be the case and while we have seen glimpses of Harry making the step there is still a long way to go and we will do everything we can to help him make that step.

Sometimes people miss the point that in Supersport there is not so much that can be changed on the bike and whilst all bikes have different strengths and weaknesses, quite soon the rider has to adapt to getting the best from his bike and make it happen.  Niki has done this at times and at others times not.  We have done half the season and now it is time to make it happen together.

Cheers

Simon